


Thrutching

by bonehandledknife (ladywinter), Primarybufferpanel (ArwenLune)



Series: The Mountains Are The Same [15]
Category: Mad Max Series (Movies)
Genre: Distinct lack of lizards in this one, Gen, Warboys dealing with a post-Joe world, actual puppypiles though, and Max making ???? face at puppypiles, and corresponding lack of hilarity, because always warning for Joe, implied past Immortan Joe, max grunts less than you'd think based on the title
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-09-03
Updated: 2015-09-03
Packaged: 2018-04-18 19:28:04
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,957
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4717724
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ladywinter/pseuds/bonehandledknife, https://archiveofourown.org/users/ArwenLune/pseuds/Primarybufferpanel
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <i>Thrutching: Poor technique or 'body climbing', often making a move more difficult than it need be. Also: A grunting, heaving action synonymous with climbing.</i>
</p><p>The lift to the heights of the Citadel was lowering in the darkening twilight, three figures stood on it, but as it lowered, the feral tensed beside him. Austeyr tried to look himself and he could only see that the Gatekeepers were missing; there were three people on the lift, one tall, and the others middling height. At first glance he’d assumed the tall one might be the Boss but the posture was all wrong and was much too thin.</p><p>And that’s when Austeyr became a little concerned as well.</p><p>“Schlanger,” the tall one with the bone-white hair declared sharply, “you’re <i>late</i>.”</p>
            </blockquote>





	Thrutching

They came up on the Citadel as twilight was settling, the stone towers rising up in front of them as three tall sentries, cowled by shadows, eyes hidden. Austeyr thought he’d got a handle on the wasteland feral during their walk back; the different grunts and sounds that meant _yes_ and _no_ and the variations of _maybe_ , _I don’t think so_ , _I’m not sure,_ and _please stop talking about lizards_. It took him longer to figure out than Austeyr did most, even considering how he’d had to hone that skill due to his circumstances, longer than even the Boss to be honest, given that they’d spent the entirety of a day in each other’s presence and only just now did he feel like he’s really getting the hang of it.

“ _The sun’s hot, isn’t it?”_

“ _Mmph.”_

“ _Why wear a jacket right now? Not taking it off?”_

“ _Nn.”_

“ _That’s a ‘no’, right? I’m pretty sure that’s a ‘no, why are you even asking me, Austeyr, you could be walking right now, silently’.”_

_A long sigh._

Even with him doing his best to pull out a response, at most the man ( _Max,_ he reminded himself), responded with just a series of short chopped phrases. Mostly on what he might expect once they arrive, and that only as they crested the ridge that let them see the towers on the horizon.

“Furiosa left with the wives,” Max said, interrupting Austeyr’s musing on how the crew might react to their arrival. “Most what I saw… mmm.”

Austeyr was fairly sure that was hesitation, so he asked, “eeh?”

“The first fight, with the spikey cars…”

“The Buzzards we call ‘em”

“Yeah,” Max let out a sigh, and hummed, “you saw it all?”

“Ah,” Austeyr coughed, and hummed a little, himself. His cheeks burned and he felt glad for his paint, what there was left of it. “Enough to know we smashed them up good.”

“Mm.” The feral eyed him, looking cornered. Then looked away and shook his head hard. “There was a sandstorm after. Furiosa drove the War Rig through it.”

Austeyr had seen the storm, knew the way light cuts up the air and the way winds move unnatural and the way compass metal goes every which way, lost. They were always told to turn back from storms, to take cover until they died down or that you will die in it.

“A small storm?” Austeyr couldn’t help asking. Maybe it hadn't been as bad as it looked.

Max shook his head no.

“So the crew…”

The man didn’t meet his eyes, staring determinedly at their goal, “When I met up with your Imperator… was just her and the girls.”

Austeyr stared blankly into midair as he tried to process it. They’ve incurred losses during runs of course, but a whole sweep of a crew like that was unheard of. Since Austeyr joined they’d lost at most maybe four crewmates during a particularly vexacious run.

"They died defending the rig." He thought about how much the Boss hated losing crew. She had to be devastated, but she would have Witnessed them. They would have gone to Valhalla, he knew it.

Max grunted an ambivalent sound, and Austeyr whipped his face over to check his expression. He couldn’t read it.

“Furiosa killed the Immortan Joe, means she took his place.” Austeyr tested, and received a different ambivalent sound, one that meant the wastelander thought so too, but wasn’t sure. “Then—”

“The girls,” Max interrupted, "I just… brought 'em back." He shifted uncomfortably, “Think they’re okay. Smart, adaptable.”

"The wives?" Austeyr got the feeling that he was being looked at very carefully for his reaction but he had no idea for what.

“Mm.”

"They must hate the Boss for killing Joe."

“They… helped her.” Max said slowly.

"Huh."

Crews couldn't pick who'd be in charge of them. You just had to hope for an Imperator that knew what he was doing and didn't ride you too harshly. But sometimes… Sometimes there'd be an Imperator in charge who'd be particularly - who wouldn't be very good for his crew. And sometimes, eventually, when he didn't come back from a run, the rumours would be that was that his Ace had stumbled or his flank crew hadn't managed to shield the Imperator from the crossbow bolts, and that was that.  

That was… things like that weren't unheard of with the Warboys. Loyalty was earned. But surely there could be no better than the Immortan? The Immortan had earned all of their loyalty a long time ago. Why would the Wives have decided they no longer wanted to be His?

And how would they have helped the Boss? Austeyr had never heard of any fight going like that, if they helped (but _how?_ He'd seen Joe's wives from a distance during certain speech days when Their Redeemer blessed them with his thoughts; they were fragile things dressed all in white, not meant for war.) maybe the wives decided they wanted to be the Boss' wives instead?

Not that he could blame them, Boss was shiny. Other Warboys tried to get on her crew all the time.

“Y’gonna have a problem with that?”

He looked over at Max with a confused look and reorientated himself onto the question. It was simple, to his mind, “Boss beat him fair and square, right? She took the final blow?”

Max nodded.

"Not my business if the Boss wants to take his wives," Aus said after some consideration. She'd got all his other stuff, after all. And it made sense that the Boss would need breeders, seein' as she couldn't make any heirs herself. He wasn't sure how that worked - maybe she'd take a healthy full-life man as wife, so he could breed them for her? He glanced to the side at Max, then dismissed the idea. She'd never accept a feral like that. The man could barely speak and startled at nothing. He'd make tiny, twitchy pups.

He supposed it would mean the Boss would spend her nights with her wives in the vault. Which is an uncomfortable thought; Austeyr would miss the times after runs, the way crew would all curl up together. He'd always liked that.

_Oh but—_

The knowledge that he wouldn’t be able to rest against crew _anyway_ suddenly punched home into him. They'd all gone to Valhalla without him. He felt briefly suffocated at their absence, like air being whisked away on a hard fall, not knowing if or when he’d hit ground. He’d— he’d felt like he had a place on the crew, a sense that the crew understood something that had been hard to find in the Citadel. Or that the something that’d existed in bits and pieces but never. Never solid enough to lean against, to trust.

Austeyr couldn’t dwell on that however, might not make a difference once he properly delivered the bike to the Boss and she sent him off too, and he shook his head to get his mind back to the question. “Still can’t believe she took out the Immortan like that though. Nothing’s ever even _injured_ him for tens of thousands of days.” The War Boys would’ve known if he had, they all saw him from the speech platform before runs and during speech days, but the Immortan had always looked as he’d ever done, ageless and pristine, strong and chrome and white. “Ey, how she end up doing it?”

“Hmm,” the feral’s face looked off, tilting his head, “she’d took a harpoon with her, climbed up his car to, mmm, near his tubes?” He made a hooking motion around his face and then yanked his hands away.

The Warboy’s eyes grew wide, _well that was certainly a chrome way to shred someone_. Austeyr couldn't help but respect that, even if the thought of their Redeemer dying kept shaking him up at odd moments. It’d been a reality of life that Warboys would live and die and the Immortan Joe would last on; and because he lived so, too, lived all the Warboys that died for him, in Vahalla.

 _What now,_ he couldn't help but think.

Max grunted as if in response and the grunt said, _look over there_.

The lift to the heights of the Citadel was lowering in the darkening twilight, three figures stood on it, but as it lowered, the feral tensed beside him. Austeyr tried to look himself and he could only see that the Gatekeepers were missing; there were three people on the lift, one tall, and the others middling height. At first glance he’d assumed the tall one might be the Boss but the posture was all wrong and was much too thin.

And that’s when Austeyr became a little concerned as well.

“Schlanger,” the tall one with the bone-white hair declared sharply, “you’re _late_.”

It was the same time that the feral practically growled, “Furiosa?” and one of the other forms resolved into an old-looking full-life. She had a rifle at the ready.

“Still in bed,” she replied.

“ _Still_?”

“Still,” the old one looked at the way the wastelander gone all alarmed, shoulders thrown back as if seeking a wall. “Well, y’coming then?” and the women made a small space for them on the lift, eyeing Austeyr suspiciously.

“Who’s this?”

“Mmm,” and his eyes were distant, looking at the night-darkened tips of the Citadel as if seeking the Boss’ room by sight, “found one of her crew out there.”

The sharp one clicked her tongue and peered at him, and Austeyr tried not to feel like he’d been given a shave by an unsteady hand, “Those keep popping up. Three more of them hovering round Furiosa, fussin' over her.”

Austeyr straightened up at that, if all of the old crew were lost then it must be— “More Warboys currying favor? While she's  _bedridden_ ? Are you watching them careful?” Their crew was legend and there were many who tried to get their Boss’ attention by means fair or foul. Their Ace and other leadership usually ran interference because, “there’s many that aren’t worth being crew for her.” _Especially_ if she’s bedridden.

“ ‘Watching them careful’?” The bone-white one asked, sharp, too.

He nodded warily, even as they seemed to relax around him.

“Y’done that for her a lot, sounds like,” the old one said, settling back on her heels. "Not to worry, she recognized and welcomed them by her side herself. Found them reliable."

He nodded, then shrugged, awkward, wincing in pain, “Mostly Ace that done that, not me.” He was rocked back briefly at the thought that there might not be anybody to do that for her now, except maybe the women Max had spoken of. But would they even know how? He stared over at the bike absently, tracing the handle he’d kept a grip on.

“Actually the Ace is there,” she said, “and two others of your old crew.”

Austeyr heard the handle creak as he suddenly gripped it tight and whipped his eyes over to see her face.

She wasn’t lying.

His throat was tight.

“How?” Max asked what they were both thinking.

“Don’t rightly know. But word is, they stumbled in after the storm and were holed up here since; when we all came up to the Citadel they were mostly here healing."

“I bought the bike back for the crew,” Austeyr said quickly, “that should help right?”

The women stared at him as if he’d made a change of topic, but it wasn’t a change of topic because that was the whole reason why he’d been  _trying._ It was his way into—

“Don’t need it,” Max gave him an uncertain pat on the good shoulder, “not for an invite.”

It was Austeyr’s turn to stare in confusion, but Max was already rolling the bike onto the lift and Aus could only follow.

“You’re welcome here,” the last woman finally spoke up, she was a Wretched so Austeyr hadn’t been paying attention, but he noticed her now.

 _What would_ she _know?_ the Warboy couldn’t help but think. The Wretched had never been allowed up to the heights, but she seemed so sure of her words.

She seemed to read his face and then nod to herself.

She didn’t say much else during the ride to the garages, desert-dark skin and desert-dark clothes seeming almost to blend into the chains she was hovering by. When they arrived she’d disappeared down one of the Citadel’s shadowed hallways, and by then Austeyr was too much caught up and tense over the feral’s own sudden tenseness.

 

***

 

As they pushed the bike off the lift platform and toward the garages, Dag was explaining something about the state of the water supply. Her voice went hollow until it was no more than distant noise, and Max's shirt was suddenly soaked with cold sweat. A murmur of voices rose with it.

The space was large and open, but mostly dark. At the edge of his vision a flickering torch lit ghostly pale faces. The back of his neck ached, and he shrugged deeper into his leather jacket, jarring the bike. He wasn't sure he could still feel his toes.

He heard his name, and when he looked there was a skeleton face grinning at him over the bike. He jolted backward, hands protectively in front of him. He saw in slow motion as the bike began to tip, as the Vuvalini, Janey, got her hands on it just in time to stop it from crashing to the ground.

His back hit the wall, and he heard a strangled sound coming from his mouth that startled him.

"Max!" the skeleton face came at him, and Max wasn't sure if he was real or not but he already had a knife in his hand—

" _Warboy!_ " said a commanding voice, cutting through Max's haze, and the skeleton stopped, turned away. What only seemed like seconds later, he was gone, and the echoing voices had disappeared...

He could hear his own breathing in the sudden silence

"Fool?" he heard a soft voice, and he turned to find— not Furiosa, but the driver, Janey. She held out a water skin, and he accepted it on instinct. Nobody offered water in the Wastes, it wasn't something he could imagine, so it had to be real.

"You with me?" she asked when he'd drank. He'd been tempted to empty the waterskin, but he'd vaguely remembered that if somebody shared their water with you, you should leave some for them. Strange how such a courtesy from another time was coming to him now.

She was leaning against the wall a few paces away, not trying to force eye contact. He was vaguely, distantly grateful.

He grunted.

"If this is—" she made a vague gesture. "I can bring you up to the gardens. Not a lotta walls at your back, but nothing closin' in on you, either."

Max curled his toes inside his boots, trying to feel his feet connecting to the ground, and forced his breathing down. He should never have come here, should have left Aus in sight of the lift and got the hell away. The Warboy would have managed pushing the bike the last little bit. Would have been fine amidst the masses of the Wretched. Probably. Max would have managed to get away again, somehow. On the last swallows of his water and with no car or bike.

He would have been able to keep hold of his last image of Furiosa, standing tall and proud on the lift as it rose, the girls surrounding her. Nodding at him with an expression that said 'Thank you' and 'I can handle it from here' and 'You are not needed' and he wouldn't have had to know that now she was bed-bound, feverish and weak. Flashes of phantom scent hit his nose, antiseptic and death, and his stomach tried to shoulder past his heart on its way up.

"I, um," he swallows convulsively. "Furiosa," he finally manages. "Need to— need to see her."

"We can do that."

 

***

 

Ace woke when the door opened, and reflexively shielded the Boss with his body, having moved over to the mattress as he’d gotten tired. He half-suspected that falling asleep on hard rock would only get him another scolding from that elder from Furiosa’s green place. It was only Janey who appeared though, backlit by the oil lamp in the hallway. Furiosa made a disgruntled sound and shoved weakly at his arm, and he immediately backed away, making space between them again. It had been two days, which was long enough for her to get irritated about coddling, at least in her lucid moments.  Kompass and Rachet were shifting awake too, only half-alarmed as there was no immediate attack.

“—do better here than in the sickbay,” Janey was saying, holding up a lamp, and then stepped aside to admit—

“Aus,” Ace rasped. He hadn’t expected any survivors from that part of the fight; it had looked like Austeyr and his driver had got caught in an explosion. The lancer didn’t look any better than any of them, dark raw skin under old paint mostly rubbed away, mottled bruises along his sides and a particular rainbow of healing and half healing skin over his left shoulder.

Furiosa’s eyes fixed on the newcomer, and she mouthed his name, smiling a little. The tense, wary look on Austeyr’s face eased when he saw that she was pleased to see him.

“Boss.” He sounded surprised, and tentative, like it was far more than he'd expected.

Austeyr hesitantly sank down on the edge of the mattress near Ace’s knees, and that left the other man standing awkwardly. A Wasteland man, dusty and hard and tense, but Janey seemed to know him, Ace thought.

The man’s eyes flicked from Furiosa, whose eyes had drifted shut again, to Ace, then to Rachet and Kompass who were both staring curiously, then back to Furiosa and Austeyr, then to Janey, then to Furiosa again. Finally he moved, slowly as if not wanting to startle anybody, toward the head end of the mattress. Four pairs of eyes followed him as the crew tracked his movements.

“Hey…”

He sank into a crouch slowly, as much from pain as from caution, judging by his leg brace.

“Heeey… Furiosa…”

Ace watched him warily, this twitchy Wasteland man with the nervous eyes. He would have warned him away if the man hadn’t sounded so _worried_ , like he knew the Boss, like he wasn’t sure if she was safe with her crew. Like he was prepared, despite his disadvantage, to get her out of that room if needed, and despite how it raised Ace’s hackles, he knew he would’ve done the same.

The man reached out a grimy hand and lightly cupped it over the Boss’s head. Her eyes drifted open, and the man leaned into her line of vision.

“Hey,” he said again, low and gentle.

“...fool...” she whispered, barely any breath behind it. It was enough to make the man give the hint of a smile. “..stay.. get some.. rest...”

Ace’s mind quietly clicked the facts into place; this was him, that one that Furiosa said who’d understood her.  Then his eyes grew wide, _this_ was the one she’d trusted? Some half-wild _feral_?

The man looked startled, but Ace could tell he'd understood the command as clearly as they all had - _be here when I wake up_. He glanced around at the Warboys, then to Janey, who shrugged. He hesitated for long enough that Ace had to blink and force his eyes to stay open. Finally the man grunted, and after a light brush over her cheek with the back of his fingers, got to his feet.

Ace watched him settle uneasily on the ledge by the window, and wondered how, in the insane three-day escape and return expedition, the boss had found time to adopt a Wasteland stray. Because however she had done it, it was clear to Ace that the man was as bound to the Boss as each of them were. He didn’t think he had to fear for her safety from this Wastelander,even if Ace wanted him as far from the Boss as he could get.

He settled himself pointedly in between Furiosa and the window and stared at that feral until sleep took him.

 

* * *

 

Max settled in on the ledge furthest away from the mattress, knife in his hand, and tried to understand. When Janey had mentioned, low and soothing, that Furiosa’s crew slept ‘close by’ this wasn’t what he’d expected.But he wasn’t much thinking at the time she’d said it, except to just get to where they were going without going back into his head.

She had an actual mattress, filled with - judging by the scent - sorghum straw and a soft top layer of hair. It was on the floor, and she was sharing it with the guy Janey had referred to as Ace, and two others, sharing like she had apparently done for the past two days of enforced bedrest. They occupied space like they were used to it, bodies turned a little toward each other, even if the one called Ace was a little separated from her.

That wasn’t even the weirdest part.

That would be seeing Austeyr whack foreheads with the sleepy sullen looking Warboy on her other side, who’d woken up further at the action, but instead of looking more upset at being bashed in the head actually seemed _less_ , and reached a broad hand around to Aus’ neck to draw him into their midst. The action ticked some memory in Max as he watched the action repeated with the other Warboy, who’d yawned in Austeyr’s face and patted his brand fondly. Then poked him in his bad shoulder and laughed as he was shoved back.

Max watched as they all settled back down to Furiosa’s own mattress, the Warboy he’d brought back to them spooning up easily against Furiosa’s back as if he’d done it many times before. Max tensed, as did the two others, but she only snugged into him and sleepily reached in front of her as if to find another body and pull it closer. Her hand landed on the older Warboy’s shoulder and he seemed to sigh and then back up a little until his bulk closed her in.

The other two exchanged a glance and then piled in around Austeyr and Furiosa, bodies intersecting and pressed against each others in loose-limbed comfort.

And it was in this way that they unwound and drift into sleep.

Max stayed awake with the night and the desert and the moon as it crept across the sky.

As he watched, one of the crew grew restless, shifting and mumbling, the new shadows making it hard to see who. Furiosa sighed in her sleep and shifted turning, resting her nub against his head. The guy nuzzled his forehead against it and calmed.

He remembered that she’d said something about warboys being different when you were on their side, but he could never have guessed she meant _this_ , this… this protective affection.

And just as strange as seeing warboys curled up together, was seeing how comfortably Furiosa fit between them. This was the same woman who hadn't touched anybody, not once, until Valkyrie held her. Even the girls— other women, who were tactile with each other, had respected Furiosa's barriers. And only when she'd been very close to dying had her defenses been lowered enough for her to lean into his shoulder in the back of the Gigahorse.

He'd thought she was one of those people who just didn't like being touched, but judging by the way she wasn't just comfortable in this tangled heap of Warboys, but actually reaching out to them, he'd been entirely wrong about that.

Max turned the idea of it around in his head until one moment he’d been looking at the wastes and the next—

 

* * *

 

_he smells blood and a lack of air and hands covering his face and those hands smell like fire and death and paint, they smell like responsibility, failed, they smell like_

_there is hurt trailing in a ride behind him and there is hurt in a car catching up to him and the hurt laughs in his face and calls him bloodbag and he is too late and there are walls rising up around him until they fall away but the night bumps with monsters and he bumps back, even though it’s useless, even though it’s not enough, even though he feels like filth, paint is being applied onto bruised skin and those hands shake, and his hands are painted too, his hands_

_are red_

 

* * *

 

—he woke up with a gasp.

Breathed for long minutes.

Max hadn’t expected to sleep well in a room with four strangers in it, let alone _these_ sort of strangers, and he didn’t. At least he hadn’t woken them all up with his nightmares, so that was something. He didn’t like to think what sort of explosive chain reaction that would have gotten from a room full of sleeping warboys.

The room had an opening to the outside, which meant that the desert cold of just before dawn had snuck in. The way everybody was curled together made a lot more sense - Max was chilled to the bone. He reached down to snag the blanket somebody had kicked off.

He looked up when he saw movement.  Furiosa was tucked in between the Ace and the warboy Max had returned to her yesterday. One of the others was at an angle to them, his face pressed against the back of Furiosa’s knees. Well, at least she looked warm.

Apparently she was awake, though she hadn’t opened her eyes - she had her arm over her head and was gingerly trying to get to the water bottle that was standing there.

Max rose and went to the head-end of the mattress, crouching down.

“Furiosa.”

“Fool,” she whispered, dry and raspy. The corners of her mouth ticked up a little.

He put the water bottle in her hand, but seeing the difficulty she had in bringing it up and to her face, he took it from her. Slipping a hand underneath her head, he helped her raise it enough to drink a little.

“Was real,” she whispered when she was done. “You brought me Aus....”

“Mm.”

“Thought I… the fever…” she trailed off, head growing heavier in his hand as she went slack.

Max fought the urge to try to rouse her, the memory of her fading under his hands still so fresh, she was so injured, she could still—

But she was breathing steadily, if not deep. It sounded a little raspy, but not anything like the death rattle he remembered from a few days ago.

“Boss?” a low voice rumbled, and Max found himself being examined by the Ace, who was apparently just waking. The man slowly coiled his arm under him, ready to push up— Max was so worried about Furiosa that it took him a moment to realise the crew leader wasn’t certain that Max wasn’t a danger.

Max gently extracted his hand from under Furiosa’s head and shuffled back a few feet, until his spine hit the rough-hewn wall. He kept his hands where Ace could see them, eyeing the other man warily. He didn’t look like he was in a much better state than any of them were - his cheek was swollen, his ribs were bound and a lot of his skin looked raw and reddened.

“Shh,” Furiosa mumbled drowsily. “Fool’s okay..”

“Gave her my blood,” Max said softly to Ace, not wanting to wake anybody else. “Think I’d do that and harm her now?”

"Think you'd be the first to use helping as an excuse to harm?" There was something hard and angry in the Warboy’s eyes that Max couldn't even guess at, but the implication that Furiosa was harmed by someone claiming to help made him push off the wall.

“So...you’re saying someone got past you.” Max challenged, voice a low distant storm.

The older man’s face twisted, and forced out from the half-snarl of his face the words, “Past _us_ ? You’ve known her for all of three days and she comes back to us like _this_.”

“ _Hush_ ,” Furiosa interrupted, steely despite her quiet and the sleep in her voice. And Ace flinched back as if stung. She continued with a little difficulty, “Not… anyone’s... fault.”

Max wondered if she meant his accusation at Ace or the warboy’s returning shot, or at them both. He returned to his perch by the window anyway, because he didn’t want her to continue stressing out her lungs.

Ace seemed to agree, and drifted warily back down to the mattress.

The room was silent. Furiosa’s breathing drifted towards sleep and it should be peaceful, but Max met Ace’s eyes and this time neither of them stood down.

 

There was a knock on the door and it swung open impatiently after that, Toast walked in and took them all in at a glance. She narrowed her eyes at the pile of Warboys around Furiosa and looked sideways at Max as if to ask, _Can you believe this?_

Max just tilted his head and raised his eyebrow.

“We need your opinion on something,” Toast said after staring at him flatly, mouth pinched, “maybe get you out there again if you’re up for it.”

“Out…?”

“We need a scout.” She glanced at tangled sleepers on the mattress again, as if she didn’t even want to look at them fully, and seemed to shiver. Then she pivoted on her foot, walking quickly from the room.

Max followed, feeling Ace's eyes on his back.

**Author's Note:**

> “[Urðr (Wyrd), Verðandi and Skuld](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Norns#Three_norns), come out from a hall standing at the Well of Urðr (Well of Fate) and they draw water from the well and take sand that lies around it, which they pour over Yggdrasill so that its branches will not rot."


End file.
